‘I accidentally ran up the back of her leg when I was riding my bike,’ Ty goes on. ‘She turned around and my heart skipped a beat.’ He shakes his head, wistful. ‘I’m not joking, my whole life changed in that moment.’

Darcy feels goosebumps prickle her arms.

‘Everything happened so fast, but at the same time it didn’t feel fast enough. We moved in together, got engaged, we were planning our wedding and then …’ He swallows hard, the memories clearly hard to take. ‘Well, she decided it was over.’

‘Why?’ Darcy can’t help herself, though she knows she should be shutting down the conversation about his ex and redirecting him to the willing and wanting women who are desperate for him to fall in love with them.

‘I don’t know.’ His face is sad, but it’s etched with some bitterness too. ‘She said she couldn’t do it anymore.’

Darcy remembers talking to Mel about Ty’s mysterious break-up in the production office. No one they’d spoken to had been able to give them a proper explanation. All his friends and family had said they’d been really surprised by the break-up. Darcy and Mel had tossed around different reasons, guessing why the girl had called things off, but Darcy had always assumed that Ty knew the real reason. ‘Do you think it was cold feet?’

Ty looks up and holds her gaze longer than normally comfortable. ‘I honestly don’t know.’ His face pales. ‘Sure, maybe?’

There’s more he isn’t saying, and Darcy chews the inside of her mouth, becoming invested in the mystery. ‘But you don’t think that was the reason?’

‘No, I don’t think it was,’ he confirms. ‘But I can’t come up with anything else. I thought I knew her, but in those weeks after she left I kept realising I mustn’t have known her as well as I’d thought. She was a private kind of person, but I just hadn’t realised she’d kept stuff from me.’

Darcy remembers how angry she’d felt at Drew for talking to Parko about a job without talking to her first. She’d felt so cheated. She can only imagine how hurt Ty must have felt. ‘Did you tell her about coming on the show?’

He nods but his mouth twists awkwardly. ‘She wished me luck.’

It was clearly still a hard pill to swallow. Seeing how unguarded Ty is being right now, Darcy suspects he might have gone to his ex in hope that hearing he was going on a dating show would change her mind and make her want to get back together.

‘Is there a way out?’ Ty stares at her steadily. ‘Can I get out of the show?’

Oh God. Oh God. Darcy wants to press an eject button on this conversation.